Elder climbed over the granite stile and made his way between patches of brightly flowering yellow gorse, across a paddock of coarse grass and bracken and down towards the sea. To his left, the old engine houses of the Carn Galver mine stood out against the sky. A buzzard hovered overhead, buoyed up by the wind. It was almost a week since he had last seen Katherine, two days since he had spoken to her on the phone. Three days now since Shane Donald’s body had been found. Rumours of Adam Keach being seen in Scotland that were difficult to believe.
Katherine had sounded chirpy enough, considering all she had had to contend with; together with her friend, Chrissy, she had been round to the house of an art teacher they knew – Vida, was it? – eaten too much good food, laughed a lot, drunk too much wine. She thought in a week or so she might even feel up to returning to work, doing some modelling again. The rent still needed paying, after all.
Elder had made encouraging noises, wanting to believe; fearful that this new-found confidence was a carapace waiting to crack. Ahead, the buzzard swerved suddenly and plunged, faster than the eye could follow, down on to its prey.
Colin Sherbourne, it was clear from the brief conversation they’d had, was almost as dubious about the recent sightings of Keach as Elder himself, but in the absence of anything further, what could he do but watch and wait?
Elder hated it, the waiting and, in his case, hundreds of miles distant, the feeling of helplessness that went with it. It was all he could do not to board the next train, or jump in the car and drive.
‘He’ll not thank you, you know,’ Cordon had told him. ‘Sherbourne, that his name? Breathing over his shoulder, second-guessing. Think how you’d feel if it were your investigation. That detective chief inspector up in London the same. Cop comes out of retirement to solve crimes might make a good headline, but we both know that doesn’t make it true.’
Elder realised that made absolute sense and bridled against it all the same: the powerlessness, the inability to influence what was going on – to crack the case, solve the crime – it was as simple as that.
‘I fucked up,’ Hadley said that morning, standing by the kitchen worktop, waiting for the toaster to do its job. ‘Totally, inexcusably fucked up.’
‘What it sounds like to me,’ Rachel said, ‘all you’re guilty of, if anything, is an error of judgement. A relatively small one, at that. And you do know, don’t you, if you stand there like that over the toaster, the bread’ll never brown in a month of Sundays.’
‘I ignored the facts, such as they are. Let my emotions get the better of me. And made myself look foolish and incompetent in front of a junior officer.’
‘And that’s what’s really getting to you as much as anything. You do realise that?’
‘Yes, well, I could do without the analysis, thank you very much. Now, marmalade or jam?’
‘Marmalade. No, make it peanut butter.’
‘I don’t think we’ve got any.’
‘I bought some the other day.’
‘Where? I don’t see …’
‘There in the cupboard, right in front of you.’
Hadley reached for the jar and it slipped through her fingers, fell to the ground and smashed.
‘Fuck! Fuck, fuck and fuck.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Just make sure you don’t cut yourself, step on any of that glass. Here, look, I’ll sweep it up. You sit down a minute.’
‘I’m okay.’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes, I’m fine.’
Rachel gave her a quick hug, kissed her on the cheek, and fetched the dustpan and brush. Marmalade would have to do.
There was worse waiting for Hadley when she arrived at Holmes Road. Detective Chief Inspector Andy Price, head of the Met’s Modern Slavery and Kidnap unit within Human Exploitation and Organised Crime Command. Hadley knew him from conferences, knew his face, his name, his reputation. Fools, suffer, gladly – rearrange into a well-known phrase or saying.
Worse still, it looked as if Price had been in conference with the DCS; was, in fact, on his way from McKeon’s office when Hadley bumped into him.
‘Alex,’ he said brightly. ‘Well met.’
They went to her office, closed the door. Offers of tea, coffee, water politely refused.
‘Grigore Balaci,’ Price said. ‘What was all that about?’
Hadley took a deep breath. ‘Error of judgement,’ she said, remembering Rachel’s words. ‘Wading in before properly checking the background, checking the facts. Which, if I had done, might well have meant we’d never have gone after him at all.’
‘You thought he might have been involved in your murder? The artist, Winter?’
‘I thought it possible, yes. His name came up and … well, I acted, shall we say, precipitously. And Balaci went off laughing.’
Price nodded, pushed a hand up through his hair. ‘In the long run, maybe no bad thing.’
‘What’s your interest, anyway?’ Hadley asked.
‘In Grigore, to be honest, very little. As far as we’re concerned, small beer. It’s his uncle, Ciprian, we’re interested in. Along with Immigration and HM Revenue and Customs, we’ve been building a case against him for the best part of a year. More. Trafficking, abduction, procuring and trading in prostitution, all on a major scale. I just wanted to make sure your interest in one of the family didn’t clash with ours. But it seems as if that’s all fine. In fact, if anything it might do us a small favour.’
‘How so?’
‘If the old man or any of the Balacis were getting wind of us sniffing round, you bringing Grigore in the way you did might throw them off track.’
‘How close are you to making your move?’ Hadley asked.
Price held up forefinger and thumb and brought them close together until they were almost touching.
‘Good luck,’ she said, getting to her feet.
They shook hands at the door.
By the time Elder arrived back in the village it was late afternoon. Still several hours off sunset, the temperature had already started falling as clouds shunted heavily across the sky. He was on the path between the church and the pub, on his way back to the cottage, when the pub landlord called his name.
‘This came for you,’ he said, holding an envelope aloft. ‘Someone who didn’t know your exact address. Maybe forgot.’
Elder thanked him, glanced at the envelope, and, not recognising the writing or being able to read the blurred postmark, pushed it down into his pocket. Time enough, once he’d unlaced his boots and set the kettle on for tea.
Peckish after his walk, he cut off a wedge of cheese and a hunk of bread, took an apple from the bowl and carried them all out into the back garden together with his mug of tea. Moved the bench so as to get the last true warmth of the sun.
Using the same knife with which he’d cut the apple into quarters, he sliced the envelope open.
A postcard, overbright colours, Skegness, donkeys on the beach.
He turned it over.